


for your grief

by Ladyboo



Series: unbroken, unhinged [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt No Comfort, Episode: s02e21 All Hell Breaks Loose, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 10:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14669412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyboo/pseuds/Ladyboo
Summary: Dean felt like he hadn’t made Sam happy since Before, since before Stanford and before Sam had walked away in the midnight rain in Louisiana and he didn’t know where he had gone wrong, didn’t know if he had ever really made Sam happy at all.





	for your grief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qlexy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qlexy/gifts).



> Felt necessary to make a follow up? enjoy~

He could still hear their father’s words rattling around between his ears. 

Ten finger points on the steering wheel whenever both hands touched it, he had done his best to match the pounding of his heart to the wailing of Rush that filled the car. He hadn’t changed the tape for all that it had repeated itself twice now, for all that he had failed to lie to himself that he was fine, he was fine, he was fine. No amount of pointing them in a direction and refusing to stop would make this better, he couldn’t run from the way that he could remember the panic in their father's eyes and the desperation than he had been able to taste on John’s breath. 

Dean didn’t know what he was supposed to think anymore. What was a soldier supposed to do when his commander killed himself, what was a little boy supposed to do when his hero broke his heart? The mantra that he had known better than he knew his own heartbeat had been tainted, had been twisted up and pulled as thin as his insides.

When had  _ take care of your brother _ found a way to turn into  _ you need to kill your brother  _ instead?

How had his world tipped upside down like that, when had their father become the kind of monster he had always wanted to protect Sam from?

He hadn’t slept, unable to do anything but see John leaning down over him every time he closed his eyes. He had laid there all night, had listened to Sam breathe in the other bed and watched the tension in his little brothers body, the way he’d jerked himself awake every time his body had started to relax. Like Sam was too scared to sleep near him and he had wanted to reach out, had wanted to pull his little brother close and curl his body around that taller, thin ribbed frame. He used to be able to keep Sam safe, used to be able to keep him happy, and he could remember his fingertips dragging bruises along Sam’s skin just as he could remember the taste of Sam laughing against his mouth. 

He didn’t make Sam happy anymore though, not since that asylum, not since those people who had put his little brother in a cage, not since, not since, not since.

Dean felt like he hadn’t made Sam happy since Before, since before Stanford and before Sam had walked away in the midnight rain in Louisiana and he didn’t know where he had gone wrong, didn’t know if he had ever really made Sam happy at all. 

They’d been in the car so long that his body’d gone numb though, they’d passed three state lines heading east and he wasn’t even really sure where they were anymore. The map hadn’t left its home under Sam’s seat just like Dean hadn’t left his home behind the wheel apart from needing a leak, needing to stretch his legs. Sam though, Sam had lagged beside him, Sam had curled in on himself and coiled tight and Dean knew his little brother, knew him like he knew spring rain and black coffee and he knew how Sam dealt with things. But Dean couldn’t talk, couldn’t find any words to give for all that Sam had tried, the only things in his lungs either  _ kill your brother _ , lyrics to music that he knew better than he knew breathing sometimes and the insistent, desperate want to tell Sam that he loved him. 

Sam didn’t want that though, Sam didn’t- he had ruined that. He had turned his head away from those words when Sam was fourteen and perched on his lap, he had chased away any chance of that when he had shut his little brother down and Sam hadn’t ever tried to say it since. But God, oh  _ God _ , he wanted to, he wanted to pull Sam close and tuck him into the space beneath his arm that had always been Sam’s, wanted to kiss his forehead and hold him tight and tell him he was loved, he was safe. 

He didn’t know what he was supposed to do, there was only so far they could get from one another in the confines of a speeding car when he refused to let Sam out of his sight. Fear he would walk away, fear he would leave, fear someone else would find him, hunt him, kill him, Dean couldn’t go back to living with the sour acid curdle of anxiety in the back of his throat, not like he had when he was fifteen and he noticed Sam was pretty. He couldn’t let him go anymore than he could keep him close, bound and chained by Dean’s hands and Dean’s love, his little brother had always been particularly gifted at fleeing any cage that tried to hold him. 

He didn’t want Sam to run from him like he had from their father, like he had from their life, he didn’t think his heart could take being left behind again.

Sam seemed to come alive beside him when he jerked the car over, focus in his eyes and a jittering to his fingers, he had the sort of off kilter bright he got just before he had a seizure, just before he dropped to the ground and shook and gurgled and took Dean’s whole world with him.  He didn’t wait for Dean to even park though, threw himself out of the car the moment it was safe enough and he was left leaning over the bench seat to shout for food when all he wanted was Sam to come back. 

Come back to him, sit with him, listen to him,  _ talk _ to him, but Sam put distance between them like he’d gotten good at since Dean had turned his head, and his brother had always been like trying to hold onto fistfuls of sand, too fine grained and hot to the touch. He couldn’t keep up like this, he couldn’t get his footing to make things right, he couldn’t make things better when he had cut them open so deep and so long ago that the wound had already scared over. He’d made Sam trigger shy, he’d done this to them and he couldn’t even find the words to get his little brother to talk to him. 

His only company was the rain though, a hungry ache in his bones and an emptiness by his side. And the car went cold, his breath a puff, and the radio crackled out. 


End file.
